One of the most important things ever written

Every once in a while your read something that takes you to another level. Something that can change the way you've been thinking and doing things for years already. Which means looking for ways to optimize everything, drilling yourself, studying every day of the year, gathering knowledge, battling procrastination and low energy, looking for new ways to grow. Lifehacks whenever possible, fixes and improvements that come on a daily basis. And then one day your find out that you've perhaps been doing it all wrong. Not possible? Let me tell you a story about a great idea.

You've probably heard about Maslow's hierarchy of needs, where people need to fulfill their primitive requirements, like food and intimacy, to reach higher needs like self-actualization. Classic psychology. Which is perhaps also doable the other way around.

A few days ago Salim Virani wrote a great post about the perceived causality between self-improvement and self-confidence. We usually think we need to improve ourselves first, to make it to the next step. Well, he made me believe it's rather the opposite. The problem these days is, at least in the technology startup environments, that we are all hyper pumped up do crazy shit everybody drools over, while the competition is fierce and global, tight schedules and stress are everywhere, most clients expect you to overdeliver things, better, cheaper, faster. A never-ending story, sucking every bit of blood you have, leaving you empty. Which makes you not evolve as much as you would like to, both professionally and spiritually.

But wait, what if we try to self-actualize first, could that help us find the energy for self-improvement?

Read the article now! Yes, forget about how to do this and how to improve that, you've been doing it all wrong! You've read tons of shit like that, just like me, and what happened - nothing. You are still the same. No matter the technique, you can't change how things are, you can't be happy at work if you're not, you can't force yourself to do things you don't want to do.

From this day on, I'm doing it the other way around. Focusing on the things that make me happy first, believing other things will magically become more pleasant. Because this guy is right, I can see the way self-confidence can help me towards self-improvement. I will do all the things I really want to do besides my job, and those things I hate about my job will become a piece of cake, since they will be downgraded to just another activity required to reach the higher goal of finding my self-confidence and self-actualization.

Now that I think about it, I feel I've been intuitively going into that direction already, but now that I'm fully aware about the science behind it, I'm going all-in. Which means more fun, more blogging, more crazy prototypes, I've also decided to start working on this idea I have for a boardgame. Just because. Not really giving a fuck if these things actually make sense or if they will be financially feasible. I need to start enjoying life, I need to satisfy my urge to create, and confidence and growth will come. Thank you Salim, for discovering and pointing out this amazing perspective on life.